Hey guys, this is my first ever fan fic. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
I made a couple of changes to the plot to make it work better, so it's about 80% faithful to Silent Hill Homecoming.
Flashbacks are in italics. And Author's notes are in Bold!
Disclaimer: I don't own Silent Hill or anything related to it.
I admit this chapter is slow, but I promise it does speed up lots in the next few chapters.
Fog sterilised the streets of life.
The sickly snow shower of ash was falling upon the concrete. And as usual Elle Holloway was stapling more missing person's posters to the notice board, which was already saturated in them. She stood on her tip toes on top of a foldaway chair, struggling to stay balanced.
"Why didn't I leave when I had the chance, I could've been sipping tequila in Mexico by now!" she thought to herself, stapling through the decaying wood.
She thought of Alex. He was her best friend. And she hadn't seen for years. He turned up today out of the blue, telling her that he was searching for his brother Josh, and not her. Life was a bitch she thought. Crash! She fell of the chair.
"Oww! Why do I even try anymore?" Elle grumble to herself as she got back to her feet.
Life was bleak. She had seen only a handful of people in the past few months. Everyone seemed to be disappearing and she was powerless to stop it. She lay in bed some nights, thinking to herself what was happening, she pinched herself every night, hoping that it was a dream, and that she was still alive. But it wasn't a dream, she was living the nightmare.
She sometimes sat in Nora's untouched room; that gave her the strength to carry on. Her own dear little sister Nora had disappeared 2 years ago, no one knew how. Or even more upsetting was that no one seemed to care besides Elle. Even their mother was too buried in her work to care much anymore. Elle prayed that Nora was alive, she imagined her alone, praying to be found. Nora was the only person who kept Elle going through the constant pointless haze that her life had evolved into.
Well there was one more person who kept her going. Alex Shepherd. Nearly all of her happy memories in her 20 years of life had him involved somehow. Best friends since they were children. Incredibly close but complete physical opposites; Alex was the type of guy who would get 5 o'clock shadow 5 minutes after shaving! He was all man; dark, tanned, strapping, imposing, quiet and laidback.
Elle on the other hand was the type of girl who little girls would mistake as fairytale princess; blonde, pale, willowy, fragile, bubbly and quite neurotic. She thought about Alex all the time, what he was doing, what was he like now, and most of all was he thinking of her as well. She cried every day for 2 months when he left to join the army without saying a proper goodbye. They had done everything together and helped each other through bad times. But now he treated her like a stranger.
Elle carefully climbed back onto the foldable metal chair, she only had one poster left to put up. She doubted anyone would look at this board, it was actually really difficult to, seeing that it was crammed full of posters, of people. Happy, smiling people. Elle doubted she would last much longer herself, she'd vanish, and by then she doubted that they would be anyone left to miss her.
Just as she stapled the last poster on the board, Crash! She fell off the chair again. Alex was right, she always was a klutz.
Elle was jumping for joy in her kitchen, it was the deep of winter, and Shepherd's Glen had a massive snow storm all through the night. School was definitely off. Her mother rushed covered in snow.
"Still home? It's 10:00! Work was cancelled; I have to work from my office today. Nora's already out in the snow. Why don't you go out? I need peace and quiet!" Margaret Holloway commanded.
Elle would have probably argued back at her mother, but by now she kind of accepted that her mother was a workaholic and control freak, the snow had definitely put a dampener on her order, so Elle could almost see why she would be stressed out.
"I'll get my winter stuff now." Elle ran upstairs.
She ripped her room apart searching for her new gloves, when suddenly a snowball bashed against her window. Elle ran to the window and slid it open, ice cold air buffeted her face. Alex was sat on a sled outside her house.
"Elle...It's the first snow in this town since we were 3. Sledding?" Alex shouted up anxiously.
"Alex, I'll be there now, my mom's just making me bring everything I need to hike Everest!" Elle replied as she hopped out of her house, while putting on her winter boots.
She looked at her surroundings. Absolutely everything was smothered in a thick sheet of white powdery snow. The trees and mountains looked breathtaking, like something from a postcard from Alps. She made her way to Alex; the snow engulfing her legs with its icy embrace.
"You look...g" Alex stammered.
Elle giggled to herself. Trust Alex, he was probably the shyest person in all of Shepherds Glen, and she still loved him for it. The hormones could've been cut with a knife.
"Let's go then Action Man, race you!" Elle loved calling him Action Man, because of his need for adventuring she told him, and his chiselled good looks (what she didn't tell him).
"Who came 2nd in the regional long distance running championships, not you?" He had already overtaken her and lay on the hilltop on his brother's sled; his parents refused to buy him one.
"Ok, how about we go down together first" Elle said.
"If th...th...that's ok with you." Alex replied; he still spoke with a stutter sometimes when he was nervous.
Elle climbed in first, then he did; his muscular legs squished against her hips, her head rested against his chest. He radiated heat, he was always warm. They pushed themselves off and went flying down the hill, they carried on accelerating. Elle struggled to reach the breaks, but her false nails couldn't reach them in time, and they went crashing into a bush. Elle was on top of Alex.
"Now you wonder why I call you a klutz, klutz."
"I'm so sorry Alex, I think you bruised your chest, I'm not exactly a light weight" Elle said as she lifted up his coat (any excuse to see his chest), expecting to see solid abs, but instead seeing big islands of bruises and cuts around his torso.
"Stop it! You had no right!" Alex yelled as he pushed her away, in anger, Elle had rarely seen him angry. Her heart sunk and her throat tightened. She knew Alex's father emotionally neglected Alex, and worshipped Alex's younger brother Josh, but she never knew that he was this bad. Now she understood why Alex covered his body at all times.
Alex started to run off.
"Alex! Don't go, stay please." She begged. She felt disgusted at herself for what she did.
He turned around and began walking back to her, struggling to hold back tears himself, "You happy now? You saw what Dad does when he's mad."
"Alex, if he does this to you, why haven't you told anyone? I'll tell my mom."
"I have, they either call me a liar, or ignore me, because they don't think Adam Shepherd would abuse his son! Your mom is great and all, but she isn't super woman."
Elle thought hard, she was in a hopeless position, she couldn't do anything at the moment to stop Adam Shepherd's abuse of his son, she felt like huddling into a corner and dying, no 14 year old deserved what Alex got, least of all him.
"Alex, just please stay out for a few more hours." Elle pleaded. He responded by walking into her and hugging her tightly. She couldn't stop Adam from making his life a misery, but at least she could keep Alex happy whenever she could.
Elle decided to go home; she had put up all the posters. And as usual there was nothing else to do. Shepherd's Glen was a boring dump before everything starting going to hell.
It was in the middle of nowhere. She nagged her parents for years to move somewhere with more life, but they always dismissed her. She wanted to live somewhere animate and lively, but instead she was stuck in Shepherd's Glen. A prisoner. Immense constant loneliness and isolation smashed through her heart like a hatchet. She was a sociable person, she needed companionship, she wanted someone to talk to and someone to hold in her arms. And here, she had none of them.
"Maybe I could have Alex. We could escape together; we could start a life somewhere new... Forget it Elle! He forgot you!" In her loneliness, she was reduced to talking to herself. At least she would listen, unlike her mother.
"For 2 years I dreamt that he was going to return and that we would finally be together, and now he has returned, he's too engrossed searching for that brat to even acknowledge who I am!"
She kicked a nearby mailbox in frustration, it smashed to the floor, vibrations rumbled through her leg. She was never usually unreasonably angry, but it did irritate her that she cared for Alex more than any of his family did, and yet he seemed to be solely focused on finding his brother. That was why she had to forget him for now.
Abrupt footsteps rattled through the dense grey fog. It was her mother.
"I wondered where you were. You look a little... scared. Have you seen Alex yet? He's back." Margaret Holloway said.
"Yeah, I did about 2 hours ago. Was he in a rush with you? He just seemed to want to search for his brother." Elle sighed.
"He seemed like he wanted to speak to you." Margaret replied.
"Well, I didn't get that impression!" Elle growled.
"I think he's just a little busy. Why don't you go and search for him. You're looking for Nora, he's looking for Josh. Maybe you could work together? Get to know each other again. Hate to run, but I've got more work to do." Margaret suggested, but her suggestions were usually more of a command.
Elle thought deeply for a moment. She thought about going to visit her mother at the town hall, but she would probably be too buried in her work to even acknowledge her.
Elle's mother was Judge Margaret Holloway; one of the most respected citizens, a loyal and noble woman, renowned for her fairness and intelligence throughout Shepherd's Glen. She basically looked like an older version of Elle. And Elle had to admit, that if she looked ended up like her mother (looks wise anyway) she would be fairly happy.
That was the good things about her. The bad things; although she was an ok mother, she was an absolute workaholic; she didn't have a lot of time for Elle if she had work to do (which was all of the time now). Not to mention, she seriously lacked a little thing called emotions. She wasn't one of the mother's who cried when their child sang at a school concert, or even when her husband died.
"Maybe I could go and find Alex. He's probably the only one I can trust, and I'm probably the only one he can trust." Elle started to walk aimlessly, she had no idea where to search for him, his house was the best bet.
A scratchy and grainy noise came out of her cell phone. More footsteps through the fog. These were more erratic.
"Hey! Alex is that you again... Nora! Is it you?"
Elle lay on the couch reading a massive textbook, when suddenly her little sister Nora rushed in with her friends; Josh Shepherd; who was Alex's younger brother and Adam and Lillian Shepherd's son, Scarlett Fitch; who was the towns doctor Martin Fitch's daughter and Joey Bartlett; Mayor Sam Bartlett's son.
"Hey you guys, can you go somewhere else. I have a really important Physics test tomorrow" Elle asked.
"Oh! Please Elle, we want to play, and it's raining outside" Nora begged her big sister with her sweet puppy dog eyes, her friends looked at her in the same way.
"Fine, I'll go upstairs but be quiet. What are you going to play anyway?" Elle said as she got off the couch.
"We're going to act out you and Alex's wedding. Nora told us everything" Scarlett Fitch said innocently. Elle wished that the ground would open up and swallow her right now.
"You left your diary open. It said you wanted to pounce on him Alex you saw him gardening shirtless." Nora teased. Elle screamed and stormed off.
"Don't worry Elle; my brother said something about you looking good in that French lingerie when I caught him talking in his sleep." Josh called. Now that was something she could of done without knowing; Alex's dreams about her. Then again she was one to talk.
Elle dragged her sister into the kitchen "Nora! We need to talk now; has Josh told you anything else about Alex and me? Please don't look in my diary, and why do you and your friends think me and Alex are dating? Because he's my best friend, and by the way... how the hell do you kids know about lingerie? You're like 6!"
"I'm sorry sis, but Josh said that his parents didn't like Alex bothering with that whore, what's a whore?" Nora continued to mock. Elle's face filled with anger, like an erupting volcano.
"Oh, at least I care for their son, and don't punch him around. And from what I heard Mom say, they can talk, apparently Alex's father was their window cleaner...Oh man! Nora please doesn't tell anyone what I just said, it's really important."
Nora ran to hug Elle's leg. "I'm sorry Elle, I'll be good and I love you. I won't tell anyone." Nora ran back into the other room to play with her friends.
"I could strangle here sometimes, but I could never lose her" Elle thought.
Gurgling ruptured through the freezing air. No human could make that noise.
Then it emerged from the fog. A hideous skinned dog, without eyes or ears, blood dripping from its every orifice, mouth sewn shut with barbed wire. It charged at her.
But then her adrenaline kicked in like a jackhammer, she leaped out the way while the dog carried on charging and sprinted away, her long and toned legs began to speed up. But without warning the fog got thicker. She ended up down a dead end, with the dog running after her, she had only one hope, she quickly fumbled through nearby garbage cans.
The dog approached. She could hear its claws. No weapons. Hopeless. But suddenly her luck looked up when she found a lead pipe. She swung manically, smashing through the creature's skull. It hit the floor dead. But it got up again.
At the moment I'm re-editing this story seeing as I wrote it almost a year ago, and looking back it's little shoddy in places. This chapter took me 30 minutes to edit from the original, so hopefully I should be finished by the end of the week.